Good bye “Secure Communities”

Good bye “Secure Communities”

President Obama’s new immigration strategy will make the “Secure Communities” Program disappear; but the controversial collaboration between police departments and the Immigration and Custom Enforcement Agency (ICE) will continue. According to the new program, called Priority Enforcement Program (PEP), federal agents will have to focus on deporting criminals and not families. The Obama Administration will focus on deporting those who have committed serious crimes, or those who pose a threat to our national security.

ICE Agents will continue to work with detention centers in order to gather fingerprints of undocumented detainees, and will keep an immigration hold beyond the times specified by judges and prosecutors. The difference is that under the new program, ICE will only do this under “special circumstances”. ICE must show that there is an order of deportation or a probable cause for deportation.